Redemption

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  Copyright Page

  To David.

  Your clear, editorial eye is only overshadowed by your devoted, adoring heart.

  I love you.

  My gratitude goes out to Sergeant Wayne Weyler of the Mesa County Sheriff’s Department in Grand Junction, Colorado, who helped with research and story accuracy.

  Thanks to the many experts on geology, religion, crime patterns, and esoteric philosophy who contributed minor and sometimes major information for this book and who wished to remain anonymous.

  Kudos to Peter Miller for saying, “Yes” and giving this book another chance.

  As always, many thanks to Lou Aronica for his invaluable assistance and excellent editorial recommendations.

  “No bitterness, no hate, and no regret

  disturbs my mind.

  In great exalted thoughts, in mighty dreams and aims,

  in sudden gleams of light and spheres unknown,

  there lies the greatest wealth.

  Through sorrow, grief and darkness breaks the light

  which leads us in the end back to the ocean

  of all souls wherein we find

  redemption

  from the world of man.”

  Oscar Brunler

  “There has to be evil so that

  good can prove its purity above it.”

  Buddha

  CHAPTER 1

  DECEMBER 27

  “Barmaid!” Jane Perry yelled above the din of the smokelaced barroom. “Two more whiskeys for me and two tequilas for my friend!” Jane came to an unsteady halt in front of the waitress, her back to Carlos. “You got that?” Jane said, her eyes asking another question.

  The waitress cautiously looked at Carlos before quickly locking back on to Jane’s iron gaze. “Yeah. I got it.” The waitress headed back to the bar.

  Jane nervously lit her fifth cigarette of the hour and surveyed the sparse crowd mingling in the center of the bar. The dim lighting painted heavy pockets of darkness across the tables and chairs, making it difficult to discern faces. A dozen beer-splattered Christmas garlands hung carelessly against the nicotine-soaked walls. It was the bar’s inept attempt to define the holiday season, but the cheesy decor reminded Jane of topping a dead tree with a broken angel. The Red Tail Hawk Bar was located on East Colfax in Denver, Colorado—a location that supported seedy establishments and attracted drug deals, bloody brawls, and twenty-dollar hookers. The clock with the beer keg image read 4:45. Within thirty minutes, Jane knew the grimy hole would be packed with hardcore drinkers and enthusiastic partiers, all looking to find a warm refuge from Denver’s December chill and to extend their stoned post-Christmas revelry. Her jaw tightened, a sign that the stress was taking its toll. The deal had to go down tonight, and it had to go down exactly as Jane planned it. Wearing a mask of bravado, she turned around. “You said 4:30. We’re fifteen minutes past that. I’m not used to waiting!”

  “Chill out, Tracy,” Carlos replied in a lazy tone, his oily, black hair obscuring his pockmarked, swarthy visage. “I told you I’d hook you up. This is a busy time of year. Santa may have stopped sliding down chimneys two days ago, but Camerón and Nico are still in business.”

  Jane drunkenly moved around the pool table. “Shit, man, I’m jonesin’.”

  “Have another shot,” Carlos suggested, motioning over to the approaching barmaid and her tray of shot glasses.

  “Two tequilas,” the barmaid said, setting the shot glasses in front of Carlos, “and two whiskeys,” she managed to stammer as she slid two shots in front of Jane and surreptitiously tilted her head toward two men who had just entered the bar.

  “Is that them?” Jane asked Carlos, dismissing the waitress and angling her pool cue in the direction of the front door.

  Carlos squinted against the poor lighting. “See? I wasn’t fuckin’ with you!” Carlos raised his hand, catching the eye of Camerón and Nico, who made their way through the syrupy darkness.

  Jane felt her heart race as the two Columbians moved toward the pool table. They were as imposing as she expected. Both were in their late thirties, but their road-ravaged faces made them appear fifteen years older. They seemed to drag the darkness of the bar behind them as they loomed closer. Camerón was the lead guy, but Nico was clearly an equal partner.

  “Hey,” Carlos said, proud to be part of this nefarious deal. “How’s it goin’?”

  “It’s goin’,” Camerón said, sizing up Jane.

  “This is Tracy,” Carlos said. “She’s real happy to see you guys!”

  “Are you?” Camerón replied, his black eyes boring holes into Jane’s face.

  “You got the stuff?” Jane asked, crushing her cigarette into a nearby ashtray.

  “You think I’m stupid enough to bring a quarter kilo inside a fuckin’ bar?” Camerón quietly replied with a sharp timbre to his voice.

  “Where is it?” Jane said, undaunted.

  “First things first,” Camerón announced. “You check her out, Carlos?”

  “Yeah, she’s got the fifteen Gs.”

  “No gun?” Camerón asked Carlos, never taking his eyes off Jane.

  “You think I’m stupid enough to bring a gun inside a fuckin’ bar?” Jane retorted, echoing Camerón’s prior statement. She noted a stream of patrons entering the bar and realized if she didn’t move things along, the set-up was going to get complicated. “I got your cash.” Jane opened her leather jacket to reveal a fat envelope secured in an inside pocket. “Where’s my coke?”

  “You gotta love these trust-fund snow junkies!” Nico said with a cocky grin.

  Camerón stared at Jane for what seemed like an eternity. Jane matched his steely glare, hoping he couldn’t hear the deafening beat of her heart. Finally, Camerón nodded. “Take a shot to kill that edge and then we’ll go out to the car,” he suggested.

  Jane grabbed one of her two shots and quickly knocked it back. “Let’s do it,” she declared, taking a drunken step away from the pool table.

  Camerón eyed the remaining shot of whiskey, shrugged and drank it. Jane turned toward him as the last drops of liquid slid down his throat.

  “What the fuck—” Camerón said, checking the aftertaste. He grabbed Jane by the arm. “How do you get drunk on tea?”

  Jane started to react, but Camerón moved too quickly. He jerked Jane’s body toward him, opened her leather jacket, and pressed his palm against her side. “She’s wired! She’s a cop!” Camerón pulled out his nine-millimeter handgun and aimed it at Carlos. “You dumb motherfucker!”

  Jane caught Camerón’s hand, moving it just enough off target for Carlos to escape the deafening gunshot. The shockwave sent the bar into a frenzy. Patrons ducked for cover as Jane skillfully punched the butt of her pool cue into Camerón’s groi
n, causing him to drop the gun. She kicked the pistol under the pool table with her boot as Nico drew his gun, aiming it squarely at Jane’s head. Jane rapidly swung the cue at Nico’s forearm, deflecting the gun before it discharged. A split second later, Carlos leaped onto the pool table and took a forceful dive onto her body. The loosely hung fluorescent light fixture above the pool table crashed down as Jane hit the wooden floor with a hard thud. As the fluorescent tubing exploded around them, Carlos landed a brutal punch to Jane’s right cheek.

  “Fuckin’ bitch!” Carlos screamed, nailing Jane with another savage smack.

  Jane managed to roll onto her back and slam the side of the pool cue against Carlos’s forehead. The momentary dazing afforded her the opportunity to struggle to her knees, just as a burly male bar patron jumped into the mêlée. Chaos broke loose as the muscle-bound guy pounded Carlos’s head against the pool table until he passed out. Jane, slightly woozy from the two punishing blows that Carlos had delivered, ducked under the pool table and swept Nico’s handgun under a nearby chair. But as she turned her body, the thick envelope of cash slid out of her jacket and onto the floor, spreading several hundred dollar bills under the pool table. Jane reached for the envelope, but Nico quickly snagged it and disappeared with Camerón into the dark recesses of the bar.

  Jane achingly emerged from underneath the pool table just as the beer keg clock came loose and smashed to the floor. A stream of blood spilled from Jane’s lip and she stood, disheveled, amidst the chaotic aftermath.

  All eyes in the bar focused on her.

  But one set of probing eyes was more intensely interested in her than the rest.

  CHAPTER 2

  “We need everybody to please exit the bar now!” A gray-suited, Denver Police official in his mid-thirties made the strident request. His cocksure swagger caught the attention of Jane, who sat on a stool with her back against the bar.

  “You need a couple stitches, Detective,” the paramedic suggested to Jane.

  “I’m not a detective. I’m a P.I. And I don’t need stitches!” Jane insisted, pushing the paramedic’s hand away and lighting a fresh cigarette off the dying ember of the one still in her mouth.

  “You got punched in the face pretty hard—”

  “I’ll take an aspirin!”

  “Bennie!” The cocky officer called out to one of the investigators. “You put a call in to Weyler?”

  Jane heard Sergeant Weyler’s name and her stomach tightened. Until five months ago, Weyler had been her boss at Denver Headquarters. But more than that, Weyler was someone Jane considered a friend, as much as anyone could be Jane Perry’s friend. The dapper, well-dressed black sergeant had supported and defended Jane throughout her ten-year tenure working homicide at DH, even though that often meant looking the other way when Jane showed up at work hungover. She hadn’t seen the fifty-sevenyear-old sergeant since late July, when she met him for coffee to tell him she was turning down his offer to promote her to sergeant. Jane had thought long and hard about taking the job. But after solving two of Denver’s high-profile multiple homicide cases that summer, the subsequent barrage of media attention given to both cases, the death of her father, and her decision to quit drinking, Jane needed to take a break.

  At first, Jane had felt a sense of freedom. It was as if a door was opening into a new reality. But capturing that reality and breathing it in was not always easy. There were days when she sensed she was on the verge of finally figuring out her life, but most days, her enlightenment was dim at best. It was easier to focus on the grittier, more tactile side of her existence. By early August, she had felt the itch to prove her investigative might. Jane made a quick sale of her father’s property, netted $100,000 after taxes, split the profits with her younger brother, Mike, and opened up a one-person, 200-square-foot downtown office on August 9 called “J.P.I.” for Jane Perry Investigations.

  Her proverbial “fifteen minutes of fame” that summer provided Jane with a couple good cases that included nailing a group of counterfeiters for a prominent Denver bank. But she wanted to capture bigger fish. It wasn’t that she wanted more media attention. Being in the spotlight was the last thing Jane craved. She had granted only one interview after putting the Stover and Lawrence homicide cases to bed—a one-on-one exclusive with Larry King on CNN. As far as Jane was concerned, everybody and their brother had watched that interview. She received phone calls from people she hadn’t talked to in years. Suddenly she was being courted by dozens of news organizations to be the “talking head” on every headlining criminal case. Against others’ advice to cash in on her name, Jane turned down all offers, including a lucrative book deal, preferring to pour her mental acuity into what she did best: solving crimes.

  And then there was that little detail of dealing with her addiction to booze. She hadn’t touched a drop of liquor for nearly six months, earning three sobriety chips from her AA group. She kept the chips in her left pants pocket, nervously rubbing them against one another whenever her nerves spiked. Hearing Weyler’s name yelled across the bar caused Jane to start rubbing the hell out of those chips. Jane knew that Denver PD was concurrently pursuing the same powerful cocaine ring. She had taken on the intimidating sting independently—partly to prove herself as a legitimate investigator away from Denver PD and partly to show up Headquarters for what she perceived as inept management. But in the past two weeks, Jane had been approached by the FBI in relationship to the drug ring. After nearly three months of working the case, she was making good headway and was so close to nailing the top players, she could taste it. The FBI, in turn, was working its own angle, but it became clear to the Bureau that Jane was better positioned within the inner circle. She was promised a large financial payout from the Bureau once she delivered concrete evidence to them. She agreed to turn her wires and all documented one-on-one proof over to the Bureau as long as she could continue to have complete anonymity. The Bureau agreed to all of her demands but stipulated that Jane quickly wrap up the case.

  Jane surmised that the Bureau’s desire to move forward had to do with DH’s simultaneous investigation of the drug ring and their desire to be the first to nail the group. DH was still smarting from the fallout of the Stover family murder and subsequent Lawrence double homicide that had left nine-year-old Emily Lawrence as the sole witness. The further complication of a DH cop’s sinister involvement in both cases had not exactly been a shining moment for Headquarters. The apparent race between the Bureau and DH to successfully apprehend the movers and shakers of the ring had far more long-range implications than just scoring an important case. Jane knew that if she aided the Bureau, she could help herself to a lucrative future of independent law enforcement that would be on her terms. However, if she screwed it up, her connections with the FBI would be cut, and with it, any real chance of establishing autonomy.

  And Jane knew that Sergeant Weyler was fully aware of it all.

  Weyler’s ability to know everything that was going down was uncanny. He had friends everywhere—in every jurisdiction and in almost every state. Underneath his quiet, reserved demeanor, was a man who could move mountains with a single phone call. He didn’t accumulate friends and acquaintances, nor did he respect every cop he supervised. However, his respect for Jane was evident and that respect had never once waned after she chose to leave DH. In fact, Weyler had called Jane at her home on many occasions, but she never returned his phone calls. Her reluctance to talk to him was partly due to her desire to create distance between herself and Headquarters. At least that’s what Jane told herself. The bigger reason was that she knew her desire to show up DH by infiltrating the drug ring and handing the group over to the FBI was a blatant slap in Weyler’s face. While Jane’s intention was never to disrespect Weyler or make him look bad, reconnecting with him would be professionally awkward.

  “Weyler’s on his way over!” the investigative cop yelled back to the cocky detective.

  “I gotta put a topical antibiotic on your lip,” the paramedic inform
ed Jane.

  “Whatever. Just make it quick,” Jane said, feeling the need to get out of the bar.

  The barmaid crossed to Jane, hovering nearby with a piece of paper in hand.

  “Hey, Rose,” Jane said, slightly uncomfortable. “I want you to know that you did everything I asked you to do and you did it well. Tell Jerry I’m sorry everything got fucked up, okay?”

  “Jerry left. He asked me to give this to you,” Rose said, handing Jane the piece of paper.

  The paramedic was just about to apply the topical antibiotic to Jane’s lip when she read the note. It was a bill made out to “J.P.I.” for damages totaling $3,000.

  “What the hell?” Jane yelled, drawing the attention of several crime scene investigators. “What’s Jerry smoking?”

  “The pool table’s got a rip in it, we gotta get a new light fixture, hire a crew to clean up the blood, and we gotta plaster the wall ’cause of the gunshot hole.”

  “Like you’ve plastered all the other gunshot holes? And blood? This is The Red Tail! The same dive that’s known as ‘Slaughterhouse Central!’ You know as well as I do there’s more blood pounded into the cracks of this floor than any other bar on Colfax!”

  “I’m lucky to still have a job after what I agreed to do for you,” Rose nervously whispered. “Jerry says it’s $3,000 and that’s what it is. And he wants the money in three days or he’s pressing charges against you and contacting the media, which, as Jerry said, is not gonna do much for your ‘Larry King reputation.’”

  Jane turned to the paramedic. “Give us a second?” The paramedic tossed the antibiotic ointment tube into his portable medicine kit and walked away. Jane turned to Rose and spoke confidentially. “I thought we made a deal! I don’t give a shit about some ‘Larry King’ reputation! But I do give a serious shit about protecting my future ability to work undercover. If Jerry talks and exposes what went down here to the media and uses my name, he’s putting both my business and my safety in jeopardy!”